


Feel It Still

by RavenAurelieChoiseau



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Romeo+Juliet (1996), SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Arranged Marriage, Canon-adjacent, Character Death, Family Drama, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Slash, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lies, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mausoleum, Memories, Men Crying, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Sneaking Around, Suicide, True Love, Underage Sex, inspired by life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21791332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau
Summary: Romeo battles some personal demons while trying to mourn his friend's death.
Relationships: Mercutio & Romeo Montague, Mercutio/Romeo Montague
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	Feel It Still

**Author's Note:**

> This is something different I've been meaning to try for a while now. I've had the idea since summer to do a one-shot on something Shakespearean. It's canon-adjacent but of course the rest is NOT. It'll be pretty clear where it deviates. :)  
> Please don't expect this to be canon is all I'm saying, not as we see the play normally done. I have taken inspiration and used snippets of the actual play and some bits from the film as well. Enjoy!

Flickering candles made shadows dance, the shyest ones stalking corners where the light couldn’t reach. Romeo’s finger hovered over the freshly etched Latin, rough edges of grief stalling the air in his lungs.

Reading the name made the fact indubitable. He feared its touch might forever seize the scream held hostage within him. There was no need to run his fingertips over the groove of cold chiseled epitaph. Such sentiment was permanently seared into his own heart at the highest price imaginable: true love.  
Such flowery prose for the forsaken it was, crafted by his own soul’s dejection.  
  
Romeo’s hands were still as good as wet and he knew it.  
 _Why the devil came you between us?!_  
He winced at the memory, still vivid in his mind’s eye. Replacing trembling fist back into his lap, Romeo shut his swollen eyes and summoned a breath so deep a diagonal line of pain cut across his chest, making it impossible to inhale further.  
  
 _Heavens, what have I done?!_  
Shoulders slumped, wrung hands now unclasped, Romeo buried his burning face into clammy palms. He wished he could be fitted for his own death shroud, placed carefully into one of the stacked crypts that lined these grey walls. How deserving he would be of this fate! An eternity as fodder for the moss escaping the stone cracks.  
  
What reason hath life without love? What reason hath _my_ life without _my_ true love? he mused.  
Despair gnawed at his guts and with it finally came release.

-

Wide ebony eyes that burned fanatically skewered him with one look. So different from the last time he’d held that dark gaze.  
“Why the devil came you between us?!”  
The words came out in gurgling spurts, the last a crimson bubble bursting from Mercutio’s throat.  
  
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… “ Romeo pleaded, twisting in his sinewy arms and arching his body to balance Mercutio more efficiently. A blond lock fell over his thin brow and stuck to his forehead.  
“I pray you, don’t leave me! _I pray you_!”  
Romeo’s jade-spoked eyes widened in urgency, blinking frantically.  
  
The boy’s dark head fell towards Romeo, resting on his bony shoulder. Mercutio’s shirt dripped heavy drops onto the ground, a stain as blush as velvet welcoming them like a thrown cloak beneath their feet.  
“I wish… “ Mercutio whispered into Romeo’s hair. “I lo-.. “  
The cold was coming for him. It was only a matter of time.  
  
“You wish what, my love?” The pain stretched Romeo’s voice high and tight. “ _You wish what?_!”  
The reply was barely audible and heard only by Romeo’s ears.  
  
A moment later, Mercutio fell limp, every muscle soft and unresponsive.  
“No No NO! For the love of all things holy DO NOT TAKE HIM FROM ME! NOT NOW!”  
One drawn-out exhale and it was done. No look heavenward from Romeo’s anguish-stricken face would ever suffice to bring him back.  
  
By then the weight had exhausted Romeo, both of the heartbreak and the boy. The muscles of his slim arms hardened with almost feline tautness as his lungs constricted.  
  
Romeo gently placed Mercutio on the ground with the respect due a fragile, rare treasure. His lover’s body yielded like an empty glove.  
Romeo knelt beside him, as if in contrition already. His long fingers parted, smoothing the damp curls away from Mercutio’s paling face.  
  
“I’m so sorry my love…”  
Through a haze of tears, breath hiccuped, Romeo sibilated something to himself as he stroked his lover’s cheek with tenderness.  
_  
  
Spasm wracked him until it seemed his bones would snap, the tears flowing hot and copious.  
“I apologize,” Romeo uttered to no one, fingering the locket hanging against his breast. The murmur sounded much louder in this small, desolate place. It bounced off the marble’s hollow, much like slurred beats echoing in Romeo’s emptied heart.  
  
 _What doth yee seek?_  
Romeo sprang up, sure he had perceived Mercutio’s deep voice. A gaze red and raw madly darted back and forth. Much to his dismay, Romeo found that his only companions were a candle flame and some dead leaves.  
No, his lover was encased in sacred sepulcher. The painful and unending longing to see and touch Mercutio just _one more time_ … the meaningless life he was now condemned to as the husband of a woman he barely knew… they were all a just punishment.  
 _I should have been the one to perish. The blade was meant for me._  
  
Yes. Romeo’s hands were wet.  
Wet with tears.  
Wet and sticky with blood.  
The stab of guilt buried in his being was not tribute enough. Absolution was not granted so easily to sinners.  
 _“‘_ Tis forgiveness I seek, my love _,”_ he answered despite his solitude _. “_ If I had known, cherish I would have what was to be our final caress.”  
  
For all the gasps, stale air made his finely cut nostrils expand. Mildew and frankincense competed with the scent of burnt wax.  
“The hand that cut thy youth in twain ‘twas mine. I miss thee so, my love,” Romeo whimpered.  
Turning his head just a fraction, as if he was hearing Mercutio’s voice for the second time, Romeo’s visage took on a vacant look. He rubbed into his wrist almost manically, head wagging back and forth. _  
I love thee better than myself, my paramour. Would the heavens but hear my beseech and allow me slumber alongside thee. WIlt thou not have me, God?  
_  
_  
  
Was it only two eves ago that he embraced his one and only, arms solid and strong pinioning his own as they kissed fiercely?  
Moments were never long enough to linger on Mercutio’s scalding flesh. The feel of his manly wisps of inky hair curled against the “V” of Romeo’s groin were now a ghost touch tormenting the survived lover.  
  
It was all too simple to recall how Mercutio’s expert hands explored beneath thin fabric while tongue claimed silken belly and the sex below…  
“Thou desirest me to stop?” Mercutio had asked that first time, the heavy lashes that shadowed his cheeks flying up.  
Romeo knew nothing of the ways of flesh and allowed himself to be led by his lover. He trembled not of cold but out of sheer desire.  
“No,” he’d begged, writhing under the attentions. “I pray thee continue.”  
  
How tantalizing their lovemaking was, and how it yet haunted Romeo. The times they had lain together were an exercise in skill. From their first crude fumblings to the later, nearly painfully skilled teasing… their knowledge of each other was something close to divine.  
And it wasn’t just about carnal release. Mercutio claimed Romeo as his own, every sharp angle and soft line was his. Every smile and stolen glance, every misspoken name while living their respective lies.  
Every purposely avoided public touch was torture, but they would always make up for it later.  
The skulking about, the secrecy… it only added more tension and satisfaction to the moments they finally shared behind barred chamber doors in the dead of night.  
  
Mercutio was attentive and warm. Loyal to a fault. He would regale Romeo with boisterous tales he’d heard at the inns, leaving the love-struck youth belly laughing aside him.  
They made the most of the borrowed time they scrounged up. Sated from orgasm, often they snacked on grapes and drank wine from goblets paid by the Montague riches. Romeo knew of Mercutio’s sweet tooth and he would order the servants to gather blackberries, raspberries and plums, which were then turned into delicious desserts to be fed to his lover with bare hands.  
  
Mercutio loved Romeo, even though sometimes Romeo questioned his own worth. He needn’t have had he only the power to read Mercutio's thoughts. No one would ever rival him in the young man’s eyes.   
  
Pupil soon equalled his master also in matters of sexual gratification. It didn’t take long before the shy boy learned that he, too, could arouse Mercutio and give him immeasurable pleasure. Their bodies pressed in visceral need almost nightly. The friendship had grown into something profound and momentous.  
  
Until yesterday. Yesterday they were torn apart by fate and secret, torn asunder with soul-wrenching reluctance by family rivalry. And just when…  
  
_  
  
“I wish I could marry thee, Romeo. I love thee.”  
Mercutio’s dying words.  
  
How cruel and bitter life was! Taken so young in life and love, Romeo’s only true suitor and sweetheart ripped literally from his very arms just as he'd declared himself.  
Life truly held no more meaning for the young Montague.   
  
Something grew coldly determined within Romeo in his hours spent at the mausoleum. Body sagging, he leaned heavily against the tomb when the realization of his fate set in. A slow, emotionless glance carried to the name on the crypt: MERCUTIO.  
Friend, brother, and lover. The only person for him... he wanted no one else regardless of what his father decreed.   
  
The conclusion had been in his pocket all along, and now there was no delaying it. Dawn was near and soon they would come searching.   
No doubts lingered. He had made up his mind whilst visiting the Friar.  
  
“I wish I could marry thee, Romeo. I love thee.”  
One hand splayed on the chilled marble, Romeo pulled himself up to kneel at its base. The other uncorked a small vial, and once it was to his lips, Romeo smiled peacefully.  
Closing his eyes, he shut everything out except for the sound of Mercutio’s conjured voice.  
  
A welcome apparition behind his lids, his beloved Mercutio appeared radiant. Romeo’s skin prickled at the light brush of fingers on his arm. His soulmate’s hand entwined with his, soft lips kissing each knuckle.  
“Come hither, lover, and be with me. Thou art my only. My fairest prince.”  
A light tug encouraged decision.  
  
Lips pursed, the bitter potion already staining his mouth, Romeo nodded in agreement. “I still will stay with thee, my love, and never from this palace of dim night depart again. O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with Mercutio’s purest kiss I die.”  
  
The vial dropped to the stone floor with a tinkle that no one heard. Romeo's hand stole to his neck before everything went black for eternity.   
A few hours following, the Montague court found Romeo’s lifeless corpse draped over the tomb, Mercutio's family necklace in a death grip dangling over Romeo’s heart.  
  
_  
  
  
 _A glooming peace this morning with it brings,  
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.  
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things:  
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:  
For never was a story of more woe  
Than this of Mercutio and his Romeo._

_Exeunt omnes._

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it, dear friends. Hope I didn't murder poor William's idea. I know I took a lot of artistic liberties but hey, we're here to experiment and have fun.  
> Have a wonderful ongoing holiday season and see you soon!


End file.
